I think we need to describe ourselves by the type of Democrat we most resemble. Instead of Third Way/DLC, liberal, social Democrat, Blue Dog, radical and so on. How about an FDR Democrat (that would be me), or a Wellstone Democrat, or an LBJ Democrat or a Clinton Democrat (Third Way), a Kennedy Democrat and many others?

It would put a finer point on what we actually believe to associate ourselves with the name of a famous Democrat whom we most closely identify with. It takes away much of the vitriol that can be heaped by Fox News and RW media on our labels.

For instance, I label myself as a liberal and I get all the usual Ann Coulter type diatribe about liberals flung at me. When I try to say that we want clean water, air and food for our children and good paying jobs they already have the Heritage Foundation lies and half truths at the ready. But if I say I'm an FDR Democrat, he's the guy who ended The Great Depression, brought us Social Security and ushered in a period of economic boom that Truman would expand on after the war. They are pretty quiet then.

State allowed logging on plateau above slope
In recent decades the state allowed logging — with restrictions — on the plateau above the Snohomish County hillside that collapsed in last weekend’s deadly mudslide.

The plateau above the soggy hillside that gave way Saturday has been logged for almost a century, with hundreds of acres of softwoods cut and hauled away, according to state records.

But in recent decades, as the slope has become more unstable, scientists have increasingly challenged the timber harvests, with some even warning of possible calamity.

The state has continued to allow logging on the plateau, although it has imposed restrictions at least twice since the 1980s. The remnant of one clear-cut operation is visible in aerial photographs of Saturday’s monstrous mudslide. A triangle — 7˝ acres, the shape of a pie slice — can be seen atop the destruction, its tip just cutting into where the hill collapsed.

Multiple factors can contribute to a slide.

With the hill that caved in over the weekend, geologists have pointed to the Stillaguamish River’s erosion of the hill’s base, or toe.

But logging can also play a role in instigating or intensifying a slide, by increasing the amount of water seeping into an unstable zone, according to an analysis of the watershed submitted to the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

In May 1988, when a private landowner, Summit Timber, received approval to begin logging above the slope, scientists raised alarms about the removal of trees that intercept or absorb so much water, according to documents obtained by The Seattle Times.

more at link

Seems to me that the lumber company/companies involved need to be sued and any agency who was complicit in giving it permits to log when alarms were being raised by scientists. I find this heartbreaking because of the greed of the giant lumber companies have trumped any concern for life and ecology in our natural forests. I have traveled all over the north west in one of my lives and it never failed to amaze me what these lumber oligarchs were doing and how they convinced the local people to vote against their own best interests because of the jobs they needed to feed their families, jobs that often lost them fingers and limbs in accidents.

I was living in Idaho then and we received much of our media from Spokane. The assault weapons ban would have been a non-issue if there hadn't been this push from the hard right through their radio and TV mouthpieces to make it into one.